How To Market Your Ecommerce Store Like a Pop Up

Pop ups. We all love them. These unique bits of retail heaven pop up and change our lives for the better…and now the pop up mentality is going virtual. Pop ups can teach us all a thing or two about being more genuine with our branding, and more daring with our online stores. Here is how ecommerce merchants can embrace the pop up mentality in order to grow and thrive with a sense of integrity and individuality.

Urgency & Great Inventory

A defining characteristic of pop up stores is a strong sense of urgency, coupled with a quirky and strong product offering. Pop ups capitalize on the feeling that what they sell isn’t going to be around forever. And this definitely isn’t about using those horrible banner ads or pop ups shouting about “SALES SALES SALES”, but about showing off your products in quirky and individual way.

Use stock counters to show people how unique your inventory really is. Here today, gone tomorrow…

Try to source genuinely unique products and don’t opt for stuff that everyone else is busy selling. Find your own way. Try to source sellers from other countries and mix and match your products across different themes.

Organize your store in a fun way and include inspirational content like buying guides to explain where your products came from and how they fit together. You aren’t there to tell your customers about your vision, so it’s important that you show it to them through your online store.

Quirky Branding

A bland ecommerce store sends customers to sleep. Make do like pop ups and create an ecommerce brand that makes people stand up. Be disruptive, not complacent.

See your unique branding as an opportunity to reinforce what your company is all about. Clarify your value proposition and USP first, but then go one step ahead and play around a bit. Get creative and start exploring your brand’s personality.

Don’t think that being quirky with your brand means creating a super complex ‘quirky’ website that only you can understand (never a good thing). It’s more about showing personality through great copy and imagery, rather than building your store back to front. You still have to give users a customer journey they can easily understand.

Embrace Community

Embrace your community and invite bloggers and influencers in your vertical to interact with your online brand. Cultivate a sense of openness and always keep your store’s blog and social profiles active. Collaboration opportunities often come through having conversations with people, so take the time to listen.

Get to know the people around you online. Always look of for partnerships in the form of product reviews, content, ads and shout outs.

Wonderful things happen when people work together, and the same is true for the online space. Give back to the community and reap the rewards.

Remain Agile

The beauty of pop ups vs. traditional retail models is their ability to remain agile. Pop ups can move fast and change direction in a second. Embrace this same agility for your online store and don’t get weighed down by expensive product inventory and complex processes.

Save money where you can. Learn to recognize what opportunities are worth walking away from. Don’t fall for the sales chatter and end up lumbered with expensive tools and subscriptions you don’t really need.

Listen to your customers and build your store and inventory around their purchase habits and needs. Learn how to be reactive with your inventory.

Social Proof is All the Proof You Need

Pop ups are often passed from person to person. Word of mouth marketing and genuine referrals are like gold dust. Treat your customers like kings and ask for reviews and recommendations in order to harness the power of social selling for your online store.

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About the author

MicroStartups

A team of writers and marketers, MicroStartups was founded to inspire the entrepreneurial and business community to give back. We believe in business growth through giving and supporting the local community.